Yosemite sesquicentennial the focus of new website

Officials at Yosemite National Park are getting a head start on next year's 150th anniversary with a new website that will contain information about celebrations, events and projects.

Officials at Yosemite National Park are getting a head start on next year’s 150th anniversary with a new website that will contain information about celebrations, events and projects.

The site allows visitors to share Yosemite stories and read about the park’s history. It will guide visitors to celebrations in the park and surrounding communities tied to the anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln granting the area to the state of California on June 30, 1864.

Visit www.nps.gov/yose/anniversary.

Museum of Western art to be part of River Walk

A museum featuring art of the American West is to open in the fall along San Antonio’s River Walk.

The Briscoe Western Art Museum, to open Oct. 26, is named in honor of late Texas Gov. Dolph Briscoe Jr. and his wife, Janey.

The main museum building is housed in San Antonio’s former central library. The museum will also include a sculpture garden.

Full T. rex skeleton headed for display at Smithsonian

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History is acquiring its first full Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton for eventual display in a dinosaur hall planned for the museum on the National Mall.

The museum reached a 50-year loan agreement with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to display one of the most complete T. rex specimens discovered.

The fossil was found in 1988 by a rancher on federal land near the Fort Peck reservoir in eastern Montana. The fossil was previously loaned to the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Mont.

It will be the centerpiece of a dinosaur hall scheduled to open in 2019.

Welk home might become attraction in North Dakota

The State Historical Society of North Dakota is considering buying the boyhood home of Lawrence Welk, although some worry that the farmstead might not draw many tourists because many fans of the famed champagne music bandleader have died or will do so soon.

The organization proposes to use Welk’s home in the tiny town of Strasburg to also highlight the importance of agriculture and the region’s German-Russian heritage.

The 6-acre property, about 75 miles southeast of Bismarck, is still owned by Welk’s extended family.